


Hunted

by Nerissa



Series: Pretty Monsters [1]
Category: Wizards of Waverly Place
Genre: F/M, Maybe a little OOC, Rape/Non-con References, Stalking, Strong Language, pre-incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-29
Updated: 2012-07-29
Packaged: 2017-11-11 00:29:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerissa/pseuds/Nerissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mason finally figures it out: any girl can love a wolf, as long as he acts like a puppy. He just needs to make sure Alex doesn't see him for who he really is until it's too late.</p>
<p>It's going pretty well at first. Then Justin happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunted

This world was made for wolves.

Mason tumbled to that fact one night shortly after Alex broke up with him, and he took another girl to see a movie. It was the kind of romantic comedy Alex would have sneered at, but most other girls seemed to love. He'd played the gentleman and prepared himself for an evening of tedium, only to be stunned by what he saw. 

There, in a darkened theatre with a girl who smelled too human to appeal to him as anything other than an evening snack, Mason watched the most improbable success unfold. The male lead, an irritating individual any werewolf would have dismissed as unworthy of the prize of a mate, demonstrated surprisingly dogged tendencies in his pursuit of the woman cast as his co-star.

"Surely she won't have anything to do with him!" he'd said to his seatmate.

She scowled.

"Shh! Don't be so unromantic. I'm enjoying this."

Unromantic? Mason fell silent, and watched, amazed, as the character he'd believed any thinking woman would dismiss as unappealing actually _succeeded_. The man-child paradox of puppy and wolf was crass and clumsy, yet determinedly insensible of the woman's increasingly feeble protests. To Mason's shock the laughable creature actually triumphed, won his quarry and carried her off into the clouds as everything ended in a blaze of pastel hues and cheery, upbeat music that heralded the arrival of the credits.

"Ohhh," the girl beside him sighed happily, "oh wasn't that great?" Then she giggled, poked him in the side and said, "but I guess guys don't really like movies like this, huh?"

"On the contrary," said Mason, "I found it most instructive."

Which was nothing less than the truth. Because that was when Mason finally figured it out.

_Girls could love wolves, as long as the wolves acted like puppies_.

This world was made for wolves, as long as they abided by that all-important rule. After all, who didn't love a puppy? Was there anything less threatening than sweet, goofy puppies with paws too big for their bodies and tails they hadn't grown into yet? 

If you knew a man was a wolf of course you'd be on your guard, but if you thought he was nothing more than a puppy . . . he'd be in. As long as the wolf acted like a puppy most of the time, girls would ignore those times the wolf slipped through. Boys will be boys, and all that.

That had been his mistake with Juliet, centuries before; he'd let her know he saw her as prey. Juliet had taken that as well as any vampire would, and reacted accordingly. He'd fled for the hills, tail between his legs, glad to have escaped with his life.

He wouldn't make that mistake twice.

So when Alex and Harper moved into his building, Mason took it as a sign. If he could try this new kind of hunting on her, if he could make sure she didn't see him as anything but awkward, sweet and clumsy until it was too late for her to see her mistake . . . he could get her back.

***

Mason threw himself into his new role, emulating a puppy in all that he did. He made sure he was everything no wolf—or-woman—would count a serious threat: gauche and witless, overstepping the boundaries Alex tried to establish in a way she could dismiss as awkwardly unintentional, and nothing resembling any kind of threat.

It was trickier with Alex than it would have been with any other girl, Alex having such a low tolerance for bullshit that wasn't her own, but luck was on his side.

She seemed off, lately; less herself, for whatever reason. She was almost gentle with him sometimes, where the old Alex—as wolfish a creature as any he'd met—would have snapped and snarled and driven him from her den, boundaries not so much politely defined as drawn in blood. _His_ blood.

But this Alex was softer. Confused. Unsure.

He could work with that.

On one occasion, locked on the other side of her door, he overheard Harper ask about it.

"What's wrong with you, anyway? Do you actually want him back? Is that what this is about? Normally you don't put up with it the _first_ time a guy doesn't listen. Remember Tyler Kelvy?"

"Jackass put his hand up my shirt," Alex muttered. "He had it coming."

"Oh, and pushing himself into your home, pointing a wand at you and casting a spell that could have made your _heart explode_ would have been _so_ much better?" Harper scoffed.

Alex paused. Mason strained to hear her answer.

"The way you say it makes it sound so awful, Harper. This is different than Tyler. Maybe some of this is my fault, you know? Maybe if I'd done something different, Mason wouldn't have such a hard time moving on. I think he's just confused. He'll figure it out eventually if I'm just patient, and give him some time."

It was such a ridiculously un-Alex thing for her to say, so soft and doe-like, that Mason spent the whole night jerking off to the memory and half the next morning wondering if he might have dreamed the whole thing.

He spent the other half salivating at the possibility that he hadn't.

***

His first fear had been that Harper would suspect, but that was laid to rest when he stopped by one night to ask if they wanted to go out for ice cream. Her earlier conversation with Alex had worried him for a while, but it turned out that Harper watched those movies, too. He'd opened the door to make his entreaty and found Harper on the couch, hugging her pillow, glued to the comedy on screen as the woman's 'no' was ignored until it became a dewy-eyed 'yes.'

"I already said no, Mason," Alex said absently, barely looking over her shoulder. "We don't want any ice cream. Now, we're trying to watch something here. Do you mind?"

Her expression was so exasperated that he quickly shifted his gaze to Harper, who was dreamy and wistful, and sighing about how romantic it all was—the movie, of course, not his invitation to go for ice cream. But really, Mason didn't see much difference between the two.

"No, of course not," he said, stiffly courteous. "Enjoy your show."

Then he had bowed out, and the next day he had doubled the _romantic_ side of his efforts, leaving little gifts, making a grand production of returning things she had left with him. If Harper could see him as a sweet and hapless boyfriend scorned, lovelorn and hopelessly lost without his soul mate, maybe he could get to Alex after all.

***

As days passed, it got harder for Mason to hide the wolf in him. Late one morning he heard Harper leave to go shopping, so he wormed his way in through Alex's door and spent forty-six minutes convincing his ex girlfriend that he didn't mind doing her laundry if it would save her the trip to the basement.

"I know you don't like sorting things," he'd explained, and smiled at her with such goofy, unthreatening affection that she sighed, rolled her eyes, and surrendered a basket of whites ("Harper makes me separate them. Sometimes it's worse than living with Justin!") that he took down to the basement.

In the damp, dim room, the machines thrumming wheezily on the far wall, he had crouched over her laundry basket and slipped a camisole free. The soft fabric smelled sweet and spicy: part Alex, part barbeque sauce spilled on the hem. "Finding" it in his own laundry tomorrow would give him the perfect excuse to return it to her.

He slept with the camisole on his pillow that night, and dreamed he was running through the woods in pursuit of a doe that was tiring fast. As he overtook her and leaped for her throat, the doe shouted "no" in Alex's voice.

He woke just as the first gush of warm blood, sweet and spicy, spattered his face. He lay in the darkness, his own veins thrumming wildly as the blood within surged to transform him. His hands were hot and dry, lightly speckled with dark fur.

He'd started to turn in his sleep.

He clutched her camisole in one thinly-furred hand, and himself in the other. A deep, guttural growl issued from somewhere deep inside him.

It was a long time before he was relaxed enough to sleep again.

***

Hiding the wolf in him was exhausting, but he told himself it was worth it. If he could wear down Alex, what _couldn't_ he do?

The answer came sooner than expected, when he heard heavy footfalls approach Alex's door, followed by a knock, and her glad cry of welcome.

He couldn't fool Justin.

Justin was going to be a problem. Justin was always the problem, where Alex was concerned.

"What do you mean, he was here _again_?"

Alex's brother sounded incredulous. He also sounded angry, tired, and . . . strained. The strain was new, Mason noted; it was different from Justin's usual low-key anxiety, more like a string that had been pulled too taut for too long, perilously close to the snapping point.

Alex, in contrast, sounded less strained and more worn down; much more worn down than she had been when Mason first started poking his head around her door.

"Come on, Justin, you just got here. Do we really have to spend your visit talking about my stupid ex boyfriend?"

"If he's bothering you, then yeah, I think we do."

"But he's not. I mean, not really. He can't help it, so just cut it out, okay? He isn't _really_ bothering me."

It was a lie, and the Justin that Mason remembered would have caught and called her out on it, but for some reason this time he let it slide. They talked about other things until Justin left, their words strangely stilted and unlike them.

Mason might have focused on that anomaly more, if he hadn't been so busy brooding over the fact that even now, puppy and all, he could not make Justin trust him with Alex.

***

The days that followed only served to confirm what Mason already knew. No amount of overeager boyishness on his part would sway Alex's brother. The things Mason did to lull Harper, to allow himself the freedom he needed to get close to Alex, all those things that girls were taught to believe were cute? They might make Harper sigh, but they made Justin growl deep in his throat.

That was what pissed Mason off most about Justin. The guy was like some godamned sheep dog, his lip curling every time he scented a wolf. And okay, so maybe the analogy wasn't perfect, because whatever Alex was, she was no lamb. But one slip-up in front of Justin on Mason's part, and it would be over. Justin's eyes would get dark and hard, and you knew he didn't care what she was—lamb or lioness—just so long as the whole world knew she was _his_.

So Mason watched his step around Justin from then on. He tried to duck out when he heard him coming, and those times it wasn't possible, he kept quiet, slinking back into the shadows and willing himself to become part of them, camouflaged and silent until he could resume the hunt.

He also tried not to overhear them on the few times Justin came to visit, but it was kind of impossible not to listen in. He told himself it wasn't really eavesdropping if you were overhearing things by virtue of being a werewolf. And if you were in competition with one of the speakers for the other. Even if neither of you could admit it openly.

"Does that really not bother you, having him here so much?" Justin asked. "I mean, especially when you keep telling him to piss off."

"What do you care? It isn't like you're around all that much anyway."

"I care because—look, Alex, does it bother you, or not?"

"Why? What would you do if it did? Call the dogcatcher?" She laughed deep in her throat, and it took Mason a moment to realize that the angry growl he heard was his own.

"No, I'd—I don't know. What would you want me to do?"

Why would he _ask_ her that?

Mason shook his head, doglike in bewilderment. He knew what Justin wanted to do as well as Justin himself did. If Alex said Mason was bothering her . . . well, Mason had seen that look in Justin's eyes once before. He'd rather not see it twice.

"I don't care what you do, Justin. Do whatever you like. It's not like you're ever around here to do it, anyway."

"Don't change the subject. If he's bothering you, what would you want me to do?"

"What I want you to do is _not_ worry about Mason. I can handle him. What I want you to do is . . ." she trailed off.

Mason could picture the sudden flash of uncertainty in her face, that rare glimpse of vulnerability she sometimes betrayed, the one that made him feel strong and good and right.

The one that Justin hated.

"Alex." Her name escaped Justin like a sigh. "What is it?"

"You hardly ever visit." She was trying not to cry. "I miss you. I want you to visit more. That's all."

"Yeah?" he sounded awkward, incredulous and hopeful all at once.

"Yeah. Let me worry about Mason, okay? It's not . . . I mean, sure it's annoying and all, but he's just being kind of stupid about it. No big deal. All right?"

"All right. If you're sure."

"I'm sure. He's no threat, Justin, I promise," she said, and Mason smiled at the wall between them, because he was pretty sure she meant it.

Which meant it was working.

***

The next day, he started waiting in the elevator.

He knew it was a risk. Alex wouldn't like it, but that was only to be expected. She also didn't like him pushing his way into her apartment despite her requests to stay away, but he'd gotten around that just fine. What worried him most was that Alex being caught in such a small space with him, puppyish or not, might make her realize he was not as harmless as he'd worked so hard to make her believe.

Every over-the-top gesture, every ridiculous thing he'd said, all in the spirit of mimicking that strange man in the movie who had done everything wrong but in such a disarmingly adorable way he'd still ended up victorious . . . all of that would be for nothing if Alex realized he was still a wolf inside.

The first time he'd caught her had been the worst, because he hadn't known what to expect. He'd come across as goofier than usual, just to be on the safe side.

"Alex, I only want to talk about _us_!" he said, brandishing a bouquet of velvety roses, red as heart's blood. He kept one eye on the visible pulsepoint in her neck, using it as a gauge for her anger.

"Mason, I keep telling you there isn't any us. Not anymore. Please, you need to listen to me." She spoke as though she still believed there was a chance he really would, even after everything he had done to the contrary.

Her heartbeat was rapid, but not out of fear. She was irritated and impatient, certainly, but that was all right. If the past few weeks had taught him anything it was that he could work around her irritation and impatience, even her apprehension. He'd never have thought it possible just a few months before, but he could actually make her—Alex Russo!—ignore her every instinct that something here was not right; that something here was dangerous.

Somehow that knowledge made the sight of the vein in her neck, thrumming with her frustration at what she thought was simple lovesick stubborness, absolutely mouthwatering.

He had to duck his head to hide the way he licked his lips, all wolf.

"Leave me alone, Mason," she ordered, stepping from the elevator. "I mean it."

He knew she meant it. It was thrilling, the way she actually thought he'd listen.

***

He never heard Justin coming. He didn't smell him, either.

It was probably some kind of spell Justin had cast as camouflage, but Mason didn't have time to wonder about that. One minute he was skulking in the corner of the elevator, waiting to catch Alex when she got back from her Saturday trip to the deli on the corner, and the next the doors slid open in the lobby, Justin stepped on, and the doors sealed them off from the world outside.

Mason was caught so off guard, he didn't even react when the other boy pulled his wand from his back pocket, and twirled it in a tight, measured circle.

_"A point I need to make; to make it, time I'll take."_

A strange, static silence settled over the motionless car, as though they were the only two people in the world.

"Justin!" Mason tried for a combination of confusion and exasperation, but Justin simply stood there, feet braced slightly apart, his gaze fastened on the wolf for all the world like the wizard was some fucking Border Collie, and he had Mason's number.

Border Collies didn't much like Mason, so he thought the comparison an apt one.

"Look," Mason tried again, "I don't know what this is all about."

Still, Justin didn't speak. Mason scowled, and tried again.

"Alex won't like that you're doing this," he said.

Justin smiled.

"Doing what? Waiting for somebody in an elevator? Cornering a person there, giving him no hope of escape until the next floor? Yeah, I guess you're right, she probably wouldn't like that, would she?"

His smile hardened.

"So why the hell are you doing it to her?"

Mason drew himself up, his adorable British affront by now so well practised that it fit him like sheepskin.

"Why Justin, I resent your implication that I would in any way deliberately inconvenience Alex in a way that made her uncomf—"

He'd never seen Justin move so fast. One minute the wizard was standing in the far corner of the elevator; the next, he had Mason pinned to the far wall, the point of a wand lodged just below the werewolf's jawbone.

Mason felt the wolf in him raging to break free, longing to rip Justin's throat out. A growl shook his ribcage, thundering from his chest to shake the elevator. Justin didn't blink.

"You'd make a great elevator rug," he said.

The wand dug deeper. The wolf subsided.

"So what is this, then?" Mason said. "You warn me off like the father in some Victorian melodrama, is that it?"

The corner of Justin's mouth twitched.

"Warn you off my sister?" he said. "Is that what you think I'm going to do?"

Well, yes.

"Isn't it?" Mason said.

"I thought about it," Justin admitted. "I did. But she didn't ask me to, and when I asked her if she wanted me to, she said no."

Mason must have betrayed his confusion, because Justin's smile turned into an amused quirk of the lips.

"You don't get why I'd care how she wants me to handle this," he predicted. Mason flushed, and Justin rightly took that as confirmation. "That's the problem," he said. "The problem with YOU. You don't understand why I would ask her. You don't understand why I'd listen to what she said. You don't understand that caring about somebody means when they tell you what they want, or don't want, or would rather you did or didn't do? _You fucking respect that_."

On 'respect that' he jabbed the wand deep enough that Mason yelped like the puppy he'd been pretending to be. Justin stepped back abruptly, breathing hard and flinty-eyed.

"I'm not here to tell you what I'll do to you if you hurt her," he said. "I'm not here to warn you to back off or else. I'm not going to intimidate you with promises of what will happen if you don't respect her wishes. This isn't a Victorian melodrama. This is twenty-first century New York City, and my sister is nobody you want to mess with. If you don't get that by now, it's your own neck. Because when she finds out what you've been doing—and she WILL find out, eventually—what do you think she's going to do to you?"

Mason swallowed delicately. Justin's answering smile was more feral than anything the werewolf had ever seen.

"Yeah," he said. "So forget I'm still a monster hunter, if you like. Forget that Juliet told me more than enough about you to make me realize _exactly_ what you are. Forget that Harper is probably on to you more than you know. I don't care if you forget any of that, just so long as you remember that when my sister finds out what game you've been playing, she's going to take you apart—and I'm going to help."

Justin spoke the last few words with relish, savouring them like a rare and exquisite wine. Mason wondered if Alex's brother had been enjoying some savage dreams of his own.

"That's all," Justin concluded. He stepped back, and reversed the earlier spin of his wand. " _The time I took, the point I made, return us to the everyday._ "

The weight of isolation lifted from the car, the elevator dinged and the doors opened onto the lobby again. Justin pocketed his wand and stepped out, not a hair out of place.

Mason, his breathing ragged, stayed in the corner. The last thing he saw before the door slid shut once more was Justin looking over his shoulder, expression dark with promise.

***

He continued to ride the elevator. First it was because he was too shaken to trust his legs to carry him off, and then it was because the thought of Alex returning from the deli with a plastic container of macaroni and a small jar of her favourite pickles was too enticing to ignore.

He tucked himself into the shadows, the newspaper a farcical camouflage held up to cover his face. The elevator dinged, the doors opened, and somebody sweet and spicy walked in to stand beside him.

The salty tang of pickle brine stung his nose. The sweet, yeasty scent of the pasta warmed it. He inhaled deeply. His mouth watered, and his pulse raced with the promise of a kill to come.

Justin was right, of course. She'd figure it out eventually. Alex might not be herself these days, but she wasn't out of her mind entirely and she wasn't stupid. Mason wasn't worried, though. As long as he played his cards right, by the time she realized what was going on it would be too late.

He was looking forward to it.

~***~

**Author's Note:**

> Not mine, never will be. No profit, no infringement, no—actually, okay, yeah, a little disrespect intended.


End file.
